Across The Room

Jesus repeated his greeting: “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you.” John 20:21 MSG

Last December, I was sitting in my hair salon when I noticed a woman next to me reading a devotional.

Normally, I might have smiled and gone back to whatever I was doing. But she looked at me, and I said something.

“That’s a really good one.”

That little comment started a conversation.

Eventually, I told her about my writing devotionals and about my book—the story of walking with my daughter through her teen alcoholism and how God strengthened me and transformed me along the way. She told me about another woman whose story sounded remarkably similar to mine.

She connected us.

Today, that woman reads my devotionals. We text. She asks me questions about what helped me through the hardest season of my life and how I trusted God through it.

She is still in the middle of her storm.

But now, she doesn’t have to walk through it alone.

I never would have met her if I hadn’t opened my mouth in a hair salon.

Before Jesus sent His disciples out, He gave them the Holy Spirit.

When we took Jesus’s hand, He gave it to us, too.

And like He did with the disciples, He sends us.

Sometimes God sends us across the world. But sometimes He sends us across the room.

He puts people in our paths who need encouragement, hope, prayer, wisdom, or simply someone who understands. And with the Holy Spirit guiding us, an ordinary conversation can become an opportunity we never saw coming.

Pay attention.

Smile. Ask the question. Give the compliment. Start the conversation. And when someone shares a struggle you understand, don’t be afraid to share what God has taught you through your own.

I thought I was commenting on a devotional.

But God was making an introduction.

Notice the people God places in your path.

That ordinary conversation may not be so ordinary at all.

You are loved!